“They tell me you gamble,” she said to him on one occasion, in her blunt way.

“Not much,” he said.

“What good do you get out of it?” she asked again.

“Oh, well, it is a sort of distraction.  It keeps people from thinking.”

“And what have you to think about?” continued Grace Mainwaring, regarding herself in the glass.  “What dreadful crimes have you to forget?  You want to drown remorse, do you?  I dare say you ought; but I don’t believe it all the same.  You men don’t care what you do, and poor girls’ hearts get broken.  But gambling!  Well, I imagine most men have one vice or another, but gambling has always seemed to me the stupidest thing one could take to.  Drink kills you, but I suppose you get some fun out of it.  What fun do you get out of gambling?  Too serious, isn’t it?  And then the waste of money.  The fact is, you want somebody to take care of you, Master Lionel; and a fine job she’ll have of it, whoever undertakes it!”

“Why should it be a she,” he asked, “assuming that I am incapable of managing my own affairs?”

“Because it is the way of the world,” she answered, promptly.  “And you, of all people, need somebody to look after you.  Why should you have to take to gambling, at your time of life?  You’re not shamming ennui, are you, to imitate your swell acquaintances? Ennui! I could cure their ennui for them, if they’d only come to me!” she added, somewhat scornfully.

“A cure for ennui?” he said.  “That would be valuable; what is it?”

“I’d tell them to light a wax match and put it up their nostril and hold it there till it went out,” she answered, with some sharpness.

“It would make them jump, anyway, wouldn’t it?” he said, listlessly.

“It would give them something to claim their very earnest attention for at least a fortnight,” Miss Burgoyne observed, with decision; and then she had to ask him to open the door, for it was time for her to get up to the wings.

Christmas was now close at hand, and one evening when Harry Thornhill, attired in his laced coat and ruffles, silken stockings and buckled shoes, went as usual into Miss Burgoyne’s room, he perceived that she had, somewhere or other, obtained a piece of mistletoe, which she had placed on the top of the piano.  As soon as Grace Mainwaring knew he was there, she came forth from the dressing-room and went to the big mirror, kicking out her resplendent train of flounced white satin behind her, and proceeding to judge of the general effect of her powder and patches and heavily-pencilled eyebrows.

“Where are you going for Christmas?” she asked.

“Into the country,” he answered.

“That’s no good,” said the brilliant-eyed white little bride, still contemplating herself in the glass, and giving a finishing touch here and there.  “The country’s too horrid at this time of year.  We are going to Brighton, some friends and I, a rather biggish party; and a whole heap of rooms have been taken at a hotel.  That will be fun, I promise you.  A dance in the evening.  You’d better come; I can get you an invitation.”